These Ties that Bind
by BrainySmurf6
Summary: He missed Roger. He missed April and Angel and Mimi and Collins. And he missed Maureen, even though she was right beside him." Mark misses the before. Post-RENT. Mark/Maureen, general Mark!Angst, some MoJo. Read and review! One-shot.


These Ties That Bind

Mark had always resigned himself to the seemingly indisputable fact that, one day, he'd be alone. The lone survivor, with nothing but memories and footage to give him connections.

Because Benny had sold his soul the day he got married And so many of the others were sick. Angel and Mimi and Collins and, yes Mark, even Roger. Eventually, they'd be gone.

And Maureen left him for Joanne. Sure, in spite of himself, he liked Joanne, and he liked the friendship he and Maureen maintained, just because he couldn't remember a time she wasn't in his life. But three is a crowd, and when, inevitably, it was just the three of them, the happy couple wouldn't want him hanging around.

First it was Angel. And it was like a knife to Mark's gut, because Angel's death proved, for the first time, that it would really happen. And not just to her, but to Mimi and Collins and Roger. Collins and Roger had been sick for years but the inevitable end had always seemed a distant, barely visible thing.

Mimi was next. She and Roger got one more good month, after her close call and his return from Sante Fe; they had one month of staying clean together, a month where Mimi quit her job and Roger started playing his songs again, in bars or clubs. Then Mimi started to deteriorate.

She refused hospice; all she wanted was to be home, which by then automatically meant Roger and Mark's place. Collins, Maureen and Joanne came by most days, and every morning Roger carried Mimi to the couch, so she could spend time with all of them.

But it was just Roger when she died, early in the morning in his arms, while he sang 'her song' softly into her ear. She'd requested it, weakly, but secretly Roger hoped against hope that it would provide a second miracle.

It didn't.

Mimi's death scared Mark to bits, because not only was she gone, but some part of Roger died, too. And he worried it would make his friend stop fighting, stop music and medication and everything else that kept him going.

They all pulled together to help the wrecked musician through it, especially Collins, who understood more than any of them. He began staying over in the days following her death, and soon most of his things had made their way back to the apartment. Benny paid for the funeral but asked Roger about the details of the arrangements.

Collins died a year and a half later, just long enough that they'd largely rebuilt their lives after Angel and Mimi. His death, after a month at a hospice, sent them reeling again. The last few months of his life pulled Maureen and Joanne back to them, after a few months of drifting apart. Benny started coming by again. And after Collins died Benny quietly paid for another funeral.

Mark watched Roger closely after that. He was blatantly overprotective to the point of being annoying. At first Roger teased him about it, then he got mildly irritated, and finally he got angry.

But he couldn't help it. Because Collins was diagnosed a month before Roger, and Mark knew it didn't work like that…but it seemed like the proverbial clock was ticking faster than ever on his best friend.

Maureen and Joanne moved in together, then broke up briefly (again). Maureen had given up her place, so she showed up at the loft one day and simply announced she was moving back in. Mark had felt a small, secret thrill; Collins wasn't there anymore, but Maureen was back, and in a strange way that was a step back to their past, instead of forward into the dark, foreboding future.

Even when Joanne and Maureen got back together, after a whole two weeks of separation, Maureen stayed, preferring that independence to cohabitation.

But six months after Collins died, when Roger started to get weaker, Joanne _and_ Maureen were at the loft all the time. Benny stopped by every day, and eventually stopped making up excuses for being there.

And Mark just fought like hell to hang on.

Roger never wanted to go to the hospital, but Mark didn't leave it up to his choice. He was putting off the end for as long as possible.

And Roger let Mark make that decision. He had accepted what was coming, had even been waiting for it, ever since Mimi died. But he knew what Mark was fighting, and why.

But they couldn't fight forever. And nine months after Collins' death, Mark fell asleep in the hard, plastic chair beside Roger's bed at 1:12 a.m., and woke up at 2:56 a.m. to find his roommate, his best friend, the closest thing to a brother he'd ever had, dead in the hospital bed beside him.

M*M*M*M*M*M

"Mark?"

…

"Mark. Look at me, please."

…

"Do you…do you want to go home?"

"No."

"Do you want to stay here?"

"No."

"Okay."

…

"Do you want to talk?"

"No."

"Okay…I'll just let you be alo-"

"No!"

"Oh, Mark…"

"Don't…don't _you_ go anywhere, too."

"Okay. Okay, babe, I'm not going anywhere."

Maureen wrapped an arm around him and put her head on his shoulder. She put her free hand over his, and they sat together in the hard plastic chairs of the hospital waiting room, waiting until they were forced to move forward.

M*M*M*M*M*M

"Mark?"

….

"Mark? Please, come out."

"Leave me alone, Maureen."

"Mark, you've been in your room for three days."

"Go away."

"I said I wouldn't do that, re_mem_ber? C'mon, Marky, let's go to the Life or something. Get some food."

"I'm editing."

"No you aren't, your camera's sitting on the table out here."

…

"Marky, come _out_."

"_No_."

….

"Maureen?"

"Yes?"

"You could come in, though."

"Let's do that."

There was a shuffling of feet on the other side of the door, and then the click of the lock. Mark swung the door open. His face was pale and drawn. He looked…aged.

For a moment they looked at each other, Maureen's dark eyes meeting the blue ones she knew so well. Mark nodded his head wordlessly, and she followed him into the bedroom.

They lay on their backs beside each other on his bed, and Maureen automatically snuggled a little closer.

Quiet enveloped them for awhile. Then Mark said, his voice scratchy from lack of use over the past few days, "Do you remember when we first moved in with those guys?"

She grinned. "Yeah. I met Benny at an audition and he flirted like crazy and offered me a room." Maureen giggled, and the sound, the happiness, of it shot from Mark's ears straight to his chest. "So I said I'd only come if my Marky could, too."

Mark smiled too, clumsy and slow, but it was his first real smile in probably a month. "He didn't like that much, but they needed the rent money. So we moved in and met Collins and Roger."

" And Benny thought we were dating for the first month we lived there."

_Not for another six months_, Mark thought. But what he said was, "You flirting with Roger all the time must've clued him in."

She mock groaned. "Marky, you _know_ I was going through my musician phase. And anyway, _you_ were terrified of him."

"Not terrified," he protested. "I thought he was obnoxious. Singing all the time, tossing his hair."

"Ah, he did that _all _the time! It was like he was posing for an album cover!" Maureen squealed, and for a moment they laughed.

Mark felt a sudden, aching longing for that time in their lives. Before anyone was sick, before they had to worry about the future and where their lives were going.

When he had Maureen.

The longing in his gut was mingling with the feelings he still had for her, the ones that had never gone away, and Mark felt like his chest was caving in. His eyes darted to their interwoven fingers, between them on the bed.

He missed Roger. He missed April and Angel and Mimi and Collins.

And he missed Maureen, even though she was right next to him.

M*M*M*M*M*M

Mark stood beside Maureen at the funeral. Benny was on his other side, and Joanne on the other side of Maureen.

There was a moment, when the coffin was being lowered into the ground, an image he had seen so many, too many, times, when the grief threatened to bring him to his knees, and a low animalistic moan escaped from his throat.

Maureen slipped her hand into his, though she was already holding Joanne's in her other.

When it was over, Benny clapped a hand on his shoulder and said to call if he needed anything. Then Mark turned to Maureen, wanting to go home with her, to lie next to her on his bed again and hold her hand.

But when he looked at her, standing next to Joanne, he froze. Her face was tight, lips trembling, tears threatening to spill over. As Mark watched, Joanne reached up and tangled a hand in Maureen's dark hair, leaning close and murmuring low, soothing words.

His stomach clenched. He'd been selfish, wallowing in his grief, letting her hold him up for the past week, not once asking about her. Because she'd been there, too, from the beginning. They were her friends as much as his.

Mark had been about to walk over, but now he turned his back and walked away. Let Maureen be taken care of now. She needed it as much as he did, and even though he wanted to be the one doing it…well, he just couldn't now.

And she probably didn't want him to.

When he'd gone about ten paces away, though, he heard her voice. "Mark!"

Maureen was hurrying toward him, tugging Joanne behind her. She forced a smile, the smile she'd been using on him for the past week, and for the first time he really saw how weak and strained it was. "Don't leave without us, babe, let's all go back to the loft."

"No, it's fine. I just want to walk around a little. Clear my head, you know." Maureen opened her mouth to speak, and Mark hastened to add, "Alone."

He tried not to flinch at the hurt that flashed in her dark eyes; he was doing this _for_ her, to give her time to fall apart.

"C'mon, honey," Joanne said soothingly. "Give him some time, let's go to my place."

But Maureen was shaking her head. "No, to the loft." Her eyes met Marks then. "You'll come back, right?"

His eyes locked on hers, and Mark could read the fear there, so he nodded. "Yeah, I'll be back. Promise."

M*M*M*M*M*M

He walked for awhile,

walking by the loft to unchain his bike so he could ride. Mark rode for hours, letting the wind rush in his ears and, for awhile, thinking of nothing.

Soon, though, his mind drifted back to the memories he'd been revisiting so often lately, when he and Maureen had first moved to New York. He'd followed her there after high school, when she'd begged him to come. He wanted to be a filmmaker, so it was a good place for him to go, but he wouldn't have had the guts if it wasn't for her.

There was a year and half or so of a golden period, before Roger was using, before Collins was diagnosed and before April killed herself and Roger got diagnosed and Benny got married and Collins moved and Maureen left him.

So it was that golden period that he revisited, trying to recapture how young and content he'd felt then. He saw the loft crowded with people, heard Roger's guitar chords and Maureen improvising words to sing along, Collins and Benny laughing in the background.

It was hours and hours later when he returned to the loft, and as soon as Mark walked in he was met with the sight of Maureen and Joanne, stretched lazily on the couch, making out.

He stood rooted in spot, staring as much as he didn't want to, like it was the scene of a car accident, for a full thirty seconds before Maureen noticed him. She immediately sat up, swiping the back of her hand over swollen lips. "Mark? You okay?"

But then he was turning and walking back out the door, slamming it behind him.

"Mark!" He heard her muffled voice from the other side of the door, followed by her feet pounding the stairs behind him but Mark didn't stop, and by the time Maureen burst out onto the sidewalk, he was disappearing on the opposite side of traffic.

M*M*M*M*M*M

Mark sat on a bench in the park and stared straight ahead. One would think that, after everything that had happened since they broke up, after Angel and Mimi and Roger and Collins, it would put things like this into perspective.

But it only made him need her more. Mark had loved her forever, and she was the only thing left to live for, but he couldn't have all of her.

It shouldn't have mattered. For years they'd been best friends while he loved her silently, and it had been okay.

But now he was on the other side of it. Almost three years he'd gotten to be with her and going back was impossible. Especially since he didn't have the others, nothing else to love. Just her.

Joanne was great. She was smart and she was kind, and he liked her. But that didn't make it fair that she got Maureen and he didn't.

M*M*M*M*M*M

It was late when he ventured back, nighttime. Maureen was still on the couch, but she was sitting alone this time.

"Where's Joanne?" he asked, voice tinged with a bitterness that hadn't been present sine she first broke up with him.

"Food," Maureen answered. She sounded unbothered, almost cheerful, but he knew not to trust that. Maureen could seem like she was feeling almost anything, but it didn't mean much. "Come sit."

Reluctantly, he sat down beside her.

"What was that all about before?" Maureen asked conversationally.

Mark addressed his hands, mumbling, "Dunno."

"You wanna talk?"

"I…I miss…" The words tangled in his throat. "I miss…_before_." His voice was childlike, fragile, and the words barely made sense.

But Maureen nodded. "I know, baby."

Once he started, Mark couldn't stop. "When it was me and you and Roger and Collins and Benny, and it was easy, you'd sing when Roger played the guitar and I'd film you all and Benny'd be yelling at everyone for leaving messes and Collins would just laugh at him."

"I know."

He took her hand between both of his and played with it nervously, tracing different fingers over the lines in her palm. "And we got together and I got to stop sleeping on the couch. And I was the happiest I'd ever been. But…but then Roger met April and he started using. And after she killed herself and he found out about the AIDs, he quit…"

"I know."

"And I…I was _there_ for him. Through _months_ of withdrawal I was there for him. I stayed home nights because he needed someone there, and you…you were pulling away because of it, because I was only there for him and not you, all the time, and do you think that ungrateful asshole ever _thanked_ me?"

"Mark…"

"And then you left and you know what he did? He _laughed_. All of them, Collins and everyone, they _laughed_ because I was dumped for a woman, as if it was just funny and not hard, as if I didn't love you. I held the guy while he cried after April died, and I put blankets around him and stayed up nights when he was going through withdrawal and he fucking _laughed_."

She was as close as she could get to him on the couch, their legs pressed together, her arm around him, her forehead against his temple. "Mark."

Mark laughed, a frightened, humorless sound. "And now he's gone. He left, he fucking _left_ me. Just like April and Angel and Collins and _you_, he left me behind. And now what do I have, nothing. Nothing but his," Mark's voice splintered. "…his stupid guitar, but I can't play the damn thing and he just isn't here to do it…"

He was sobbing, then, and Maureen pulled him against her, her voice thick with tears as she murmured his name.

Mark was bawling like a four year old, against her collar bone, and Maureen held him tight, her forehead touching the crown of his head. Her fingers, so familiar, stroked his back gently, more gentle than anyone else would think she was capable of.

But he knew her. He knew her _so_ well, always had. Their lives had been intertwined since they were eight years old and she moved in down the street; there were so many strings tying them together, binding them, and he was kidding himself if he thought he could ever sever them all.

So when he finally lifted his head, he looked at her, at the lips that gave him his first kiss, the eyes that had once pleaded with him to save her from a tragic evil she didn't deserve, the hands that knew every inch of him…he leaned forward and captured her lips, reclaiming what was his, and he kissed her he kissed her he _kissed_ her.

And she kissed back.

She was kissing him and he was kissing her and it was a storm of color and light and force and _feeling_.

"_Shit_."

They turned. Joanne was standing in the doorway, mouth open.

Mark jump backwards like he'd been electrocuted, to the other side of the couch.

Joanne's face twisted into a tight, angry smile, and she threw what looked like bags of takeout food forcefully onto the floor. "Why am I not surprised?"

Maureen immediately put on her placating voice. "_Pookie_, he was upset…"

"So you took it upon yourself to lift his spirits?"

Timidly, Mark spoke up, "I, uh, _I_ kissed _her_. She didn't…I mean, it was _my_-"

Joanne never took her glaring eyes off of Maureen, but she addressed Mark, voice hard. "And, you know, Mark, sadly enough, _you_ are the one I'm really surprised about. Her, _her_ I expect, because _you_ told me early on what she was like, but I can't believe you've managed to convince yourself she won't do the same thing to you, just like before."

Mark looked away, not risking speaking again, but he could hear Maureen begin, "Jo, baby, if you would just calm down and _listen_…"

"No. I'm sick of your explanations and excuses, I'm sick of getting pushed aside for _him_."

A spark of anger flared in Mark's gut, because Joanne was talking about him like they'd never become friends, like they hadn't gone through deaths of other friends together, like she didn't practically live in his apartment half the week. But he stayed quiet.

"Pookie…"

"No. Save it, Maureen, I'm leaving. I'm done."

The door slammed and left a heavy silence, pressing in on them from every direction. He couldn't bring himself to look at Maureen.

Then she broke the silence. "What did she mean by that?"

Hesitantly, Mark stammered, "I think…I think she meant she wants to, to break up."

Her voice was shaking slightly. "Not that, the thing about…about you telling her about me. And that I'll do the same thing to you as before. What does that _mean_, Mark?"

His heart sank. He didn't want this conversation. "I, I, I just…when I first met Joanne we…talked about you, and I just…Mo, I was still angry and bitter and that's why I did it. I…I told her that you had a habit of…straying."

"And by straying you mean…"

Mark's voice was small. "Cheating. You, you know toward the end…" The look on her face made him trail off. She stared into her lap, and nodded for awhile.

"I never cheated on you."

"You nev…wait, what?"

She raised her head to look at him, the tears sparkling in her eyes hitting him like a stab in the gut. "I flirted. I know I did. Sometimes too much, but I _never_ cheated on you. Not even with Joanne. I left you before we did anything."

"You never…" Mark exhaled slowly, history as he'd understood it revising itself. "God. I…I'm sorry. Mo, I'm so-"

"Don't give me that," she snapped. "Don't 'Mo' me." Her voice caught, but she pressed on. "You think I'm such a whore, you and Joanne both. You think I'm still the high school girl with the reputation and you think I didn't care enough about you not to…" She pressed her trembling lips together abruptly, tears spilling onto her cheeks "I never cheated, on you or on her, I never did…."

Throat tight, Mark pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her, their roles reversed. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry…"

M*M*M*M*M*M

She slept with him that night, just slept, curled beside him, her fist unconsciously clenching the material of his T-shirt, something she'd always done.

Mark loved the familiar vanilla scent of her hair, the soft cotton tank top with a hole in the shoulder she slept in, the way it was all like falling back into an old habit, one that was right.

But he felt like a selfish asshole. She'd _never_ cheated, and that startling information only reaffirmed the fact that she'd chosen Joanne for a reason. Maureen loved her, as much as he hated it, as much as it hurt him.

She deserved to have that. But he'd screwed it up.

So the next day he made up something about dropping off a check to the funeral home (though Benny had paid for Roger's funeral, like all the others) and he left her at the loft for a few hours while he went to see Joanne.

"I don't want to talk to you," she said, immediately and predictably, when he walked through her office door. "I don't want to hear who started it, it doesn't matter who started it-"

"Joanne-"

"-because I know her, too, and she was _not_ protesting."

"Okay, okay." He held up his hands in surrender. "Fine, I won't say that I started it, even though I did. But…but you don't know everything, Joanne." The lawyer lifted her head, eyes narrowing. He pressed on anyway. "Not about her. You think you do, but you just…you just don't."

She didn't invite him to sit, or keep talking, but she didn't tell him to get out again, either. So Mark sat down in the chair across from her. "Like, for instance, did she tell you that we've known each other since third grade?"

Joanne was quiet for a long time before realizing that Mark wanted an answer. "No," she replied grudgingly. "She didn't."

"Best friends since then. We moved here together. We weren't _together_, together, just…just friends. And she met Benny and then we moved in with him and the others. We didn't get together for six months after that."

"Why are you telling me this?"

He ignored her. "And did you know…did you know her stepfather started to molest her when she was twelve?" The glare dropped instantly from Joanne's face, enough of an answer. "She'd always been a tomboy, but when we went to junior high she started getting all these outfits. Dresses and shorts and, and tank tops and she just said her stepdad liked to buy her clothes. Because he _loved_ her." That old, burning hatred could bubble up so quickly, and Mark's fists were clenched at his side, knuckles white.

"Mo, she…she never told me. But when we got to high school he started raping her, too, mixed in with the rest of it, and sometimes he got rough. She started sleeping with guys then, a lot of guys. I think she just wanted…she just wanted it to be on her own terms. She felt…_dirty_ anyway, that's what she told me later, so she just wanted to forget the feel of him. It made me crazy, before I knew, because I was hopelessly in love with her, had been since we were kids."

A knot was twisting his throat, but Mark kept going. "She stayed home from school one day when we sixteen. I left during lunch to check on her, because she'd been fine the night before and I had a bad feeling. I went in the back door of her house, it was unlocked and I…I went upstairs and saw…_him_ on top of Maureen.

"I lost my mind. Fucking _lost_ it. I was a skinny, weak kid but I tackled him and knocked him off her. To the ground, with his pants around his ankles. But, but he got up, and started beating the shit out of me. I thought I was gonna die, that's how bad it was. And Mo was screaming, and she even tried to pull him off me, but he knocked her down. So she called 911, and by the time they got there I had a broken collar bone and two fractured ribs and a ton of bruises. He was arrested and we both went to the hospital…her mom didn't even come there, she went to the police station and tried to tell them her daughter lied and it was all a mistake."

He swallowed. "When I was released from the hospital she came to live with me. My parents knew her, of course, and they saw the way her mom acted at the arraignment, just concerned about her husband coming home and not what he'd done to her only daughter. So they let Mo move in, and she stayed there through high school. I…I was there for her when she had to testify against that bastard, and when she kept sleeping with all these guys and people talked." For the first time, he lifted his head from his clenched fists and met Joanne's shocked expression. "Then we graduated and moved to New York and six months later we finally got together."

They were quiet for awhile. Joanne rested a hand on her forehead and leaned forward, staring down at her desk. When he'd reigned in his own emotions, Mark began again, "I'm not saying any of that is the reason, or the excuse for yesterday and what happened. But it's a lot of history. We have a _lot_ of history and it's…it's hard for me to let that go. Especially when everyone else I have history with it just…" Mark clenched his jaw.

Then he added, "And here's another thing I bet you didn't know, because I didn't until yesterday. She never cheated on me. Or you." He met the lawyer's eyes across her desk. "And that includes yesterday. It was a kiss, and I…I did it. I was losing it a little, and she just can't…she can't push me away. Not easily, anyway…because of all that history."

Joanne nodded hard. There were tears in her eyes, and she drew a long, shaky breath, then asked softly, "Is she at the loft?"

M*M*M*M*M*M

Joanne took a bus and Mark rode his bike, so he hoped to arrive at the loft by the time they had talked.

But he could hear urgent, serious voices from the door, so Mark slid down a wall in the hallway to wait.

He felt good about getting Joanne back for Maureen. It was what she wanted, and he'd screwed it up, so it was only right that he'd fixed it.

There would be moments of regret, he was sure. It was still going to feel like his heart was being cleaved in two, seeing them together, but maybe that didn't matter.

Because he loved her. So he would hurt, as long as she didn't.

He'd been there for ten minutes when Joanne walked out. Her eyes were red and swollen. Mark's eyebrows drew together, questioning, as he stood. "I thought…I thought you were going to get back together…"

Sending him a tremulous smile, Joanne put a hand on his arm. "She doesn't want that." Mark blinked at her, not comprehending. Joanne clarified, "She doesn't want _me_."

As Mark gaped, Joanne squeezed his arm. "Bye, Mark."

And then she was gone.

M*M*M*M*M*M

Mark was inexplicably nervous when he opened the door and stepped into the loft.

Maureen was wiping her eyes, but when she saw him, a genuine smile stretched her lips.

"Hi," He ventured.

"Hey." She nodded him over, and Mark shoved his hands into his pocket, feeling strangely shy as he approached.

"You told her a lot of shit, huh?" Maureen asked mildly.

Mark winced a little. "I'm sorry."

She was in front of him now. "Don't be. I know why." She laughed a little. "I can't believe you did that."

His eyes skirted to the floor. "Why not?"

"Because me and Joanne…I mean, Jesus, Mark, I left you for her."

"I just…" Mark glanced up, meeting her eyes. "What happened was my fault, and I wanted…I wanted you to be happy."

Mark stared at the floor again while silence hovered; after a moment, though, he felt her slide her hand into his. "That was really sweet."

He half smiled, shrugging it off. Then, tentatively, he asked, "You…you asked her to leave?"

"Yeah, Jo…Joanne wasn't right. Great but not…not right."

"Are you…okay?"

"Yeah, I am." She smiled at him. "Thank you."

Then she was hugging him, and Mark closed his eyes, burying his face in her hair. When she spoke, her lips were inches from his ear. "Marky?"

"Mmm?"

"I…I think I miss before, too."

Mark's heart was thudding in his chest, and he forced himself to draw back and look at her. "Yeah?"

She nodded, hard. "I know we can't…get it all back. I know they're gone and we're never going to get that back but…but me and you…it was good, Mark. And this whole time since Roger…you were the only person I wanted to get through it with."

"Me, too." he agreed, smiling.

"I love you," she told him, sweet and vulnerable, a side of her hardly anyone else had ever seen.

He was already leaning toward her, and his "love you" fell against her lips.

He kissed her he kissed her he _kissed_ her.

And she kissed back. And they fell together again.

Mark could taste all the years and history between them, coming at him all at once. She was like coming home.


End file.
